"While in Philadelphia I attended free school for colored children
conducted at Allen's Mission; when I returned to Talbot county I was in
the sixth grade or the sixth reader. Since then I have always been fond
of reading. My favored books are the _Bible_, Bunyan's _Pilgrim's
Progress_, _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, the lives of Napoleon, Frederick
Douglass and Booker T. Washington, and church magazines and the
Afro-American."
Maryland
[--]-22-37
Rogers
JAMES WIGGINS, Ex-slave.
Reference: Personal interview with James Wiggins, ex-slave,
at his home, 625 Barre St.
"I was born in Anne Arundel County, on a farm near West River about 1850
or 1851, I do not know which. I do not know my father or mother. Peter
Brooks, one of the oldest colored men in the county, told me that my
father's name was Wiggins. He said that he was one of the Revells'
slaves. He acquired my father at an auction sale held in Baltimore at a
high price from a trader who had an office on Pratt Street about 1845.
He was given a wife by Mr. Revell and as a result of this union I was
born. My father was a carpenter by trade, he was hired out to different
farmers by Mr. Revell to repair and build barns, fences and houses. I
have been told that my father could read and write. Once he was charged
with writing passes for some slaves in the county, as a result of this
he was given 15 lashes by the sheriff of the county, immediately
afterwards he ran away, went to Philadelphia, where he died while
working to save money to purchase mother's freedom, through a white
Baptist minister in Baltimore.
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